Houston Dynamo’s Mauro Manotas and Memo Rodriguez celebrate after winning their first US Open Cup on Wednesday.
Photograph: David J. Phillip/AP

This, after all, is the point: podiums and fireworks and a big shiny trophy and players sinking to their knees at the final whistle, one face down in frustration, the other aiming index fingers skywards in a gesture of thanks to his deity.

Losers trudging off the grass to be swallowed by the tunnel while winners cavort under the floodlights. One coach declaring himself “heartbroken” in a press conference as the party gets started next door and the fizzy stuff spatters lockers cocooned with protective plastic.

In the MLS era the US Open Cup has became the Consolation Cup, a sporting equivalent of “Sorry, son, we’re not buying you a dog – but here’s a hamster, they’re almost as much fun”. Yet this is precisely why it matters so much. The tournament delivers accessible glory at a time when the league title looks increasingly means-tested.

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You can trace the history of American soccer and America itself just by glancing at the names of the Open Cup’s finalists since it began in 1914: Bethlehem Steel from Pennsylvania’s industrial heartland; Holley Carburetor, of Detroit; the Chicago Bricklayers; Philadelphia’s Uhrik Truckers. Then, mostly after the second world war, a run of names proudly declaring immigrant origins: Maccabi Los Angeles, New York Ukrainians, San Pedro Yugoslavs. And now the brand-conscious, European-inflected monikers of MLS. Add Houston Dynamo to the list after their 3-0 victory over the Philadelphia Union in Wednesday’s final.

One fan came dressed as Darth Vader in pink cowboy boots. The costume proved something of a metaphor for the way the Texas side ruthlessly choked out opponents who had entered the scene with a confidence that proved sorely misplaced. Neither team had won the Open Cup before; this beating, the biggest margin of victory in a final since MLS’s inaugural season, 1996, was Philadelphia’s third final loss in five seasons and it clearly hurt the players and their coach, Jim Curtin.

The Union started play in 2010 and have never won the MLS title; the Dynamo were league champions in their first two seasons, 2006 and 2007. Few would back them to win MLS Cup again any time soon, even though Wilmer Cabrera’s side reached the Western Conference final in 2017. Houston’s dismal showing in the league this year has made that surprise voyage deep into the postseason appear an aberration.

So Wednesday’s win was a salvage operation, arguably a season-saving event for the Dynamo. Something to be remembered fondly but also treated as a springboard. “We can say we are champions and that changes our life, changes our mentality, but also gives us the possibility to say that we know how to win. And it’s important for you as a professional in any sport to say that you know how to win and you have won something,” Cabrera told reporters.

There are parallels with an even more venerable domestic tournament, the English FA Cup, and not only because both have been won by Philippe Senderos: now 33, the Swiss centre-back lifted the FA Cup with Arsenal in 2005 and the Open Cup with Houston on Wednesday (though he came off injured in the first half).

Both are pathways to international club competition, furnish modest prize and gate money and offer prestige calibrated on a sliding scale: the closer coaches get to the final, the more they care and the stronger their line-ups.

The Dynamo earned a Concacaf Champions League berth and $300,000 in prize money. That is more than enough to cover the annual salary of their top scorer, Mauro Manotas, who found the net twice against the Union. But the sum would only pay the wages of Sebastian Giovinco, the star forward of last year’s MLS Cup winners, Toronto FC, for a little more than a fortnight.

The Union’s payroll is around $9m, while Houston, though they are based in the US’s fourth largest city and can draw from a metro area of seven million people, have a salary outlay of about $6m - the lowest in the league (as of May). Both are way behind the biggest spenders, Toronto, at over $26m.

The progress of MLS wrecked lower-league clubs’ prospects of winning the Open Cup – which last happened in 1999 when the Rochester Rhinos beat the Colorado Rapids. Though the playoff system introduces a knockout element that increases the odds of an upset, it’s logical to envision a future for MLS where growing gaps in crowd size and financial power foster dominant superclubs that create tiers and predictable outcomes within it, as is the case in top divisions elsewhere in the world.

That would see have-nots like the Dynamo and Union cling ever closer to the comforts of the Open Cup, a tournament that takes MLS sides five rounds to win in under four months and is rarely claimed by MLS’s best team (and never, of course, by Canadian clubs). There have been only three MLS Cup and Open Cup “doubles”, none since the Los Angeles Galaxy in 2005.

But for Houston, Wednesday night was more about celebrations than context. “It feels damn good to win this cup, to be champions,” said the Dynamo veteran, DaMarcus Beasley. That, after all, is the point.